Hundreds march in Crans-Montana in memory of 40 victims

Swiss authorities identify 16 more victims of New Year’s bar fire, the youngest aged 14

Reports name Charlotte Niddam, 15, as missing Israeli national; growing anger that ski resort bar may have narrowed exit staircase, turned blind eye to underage drinking

Authorities investigating a New Year’s blaze in the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana have identified 16 more of the 40 people killed, including 11 minors and six foreign nationals, police said Sunday.

Teenagers as young as 14 and 15 years old were among those who died in the bar fire, police said.

Those newly identified victims on Sunday included 10 Swiss nationals, two Italians, one person with Italian-Emirati citizenship, one Romanian, one person from France and one from Turkey, Valais police said. No names were given.

One of the 24 victims now identified was named Saturday by his family as 16-year old Arthur Brodard.

“Our Arthur has now left to party in paradise,” a visibly shaken Laetitia Brodard said in a Facebook story posted on Saturday night, speaking to camera. “We can start our mourning, knowing that he is in peace and in the light.”

Brodard’s frenzied search for her son reflected the desperation of families, who did not know whether their loved ones were dead or in the hospital.

Swiss authorities said the process of identifying victims was particularly hard because of the advanced degree of the burns, requiring the use of DNA samples. Brodard also had given her DNA sample to help in the identification process.

Other families are still waiting in anguish.

The Israeli national missing following the deadly fire was named Saturday by Hebrew media as 15-year-old Charlotte Niddam, who also has British and French citizenship.

In a statement Friday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it received a report that an Israeli citizen was missing after the blaze at the bar in Crans-Montana.

The ministry said it was in touch with the family of the individual.

Niddam had lived for a period in the UK, attending Immanuel College in Hertfordshire and the Jewish Free School in northwest London.

Underage drinking and narrowed exit

According to London’s Sunday Times, there was growing anger in Crans-Montana that the owners of the Constellation bar had turned a blind eye to underage drinking for many years, and had narrowed what was apparently the only staircase out of the basement area where the blaze first took hold.

“Everyone ran onto the stairs and some tripped and fell,” an unnamed 17-year-old survivor told the newspaper. “It was very hard to get up the stairs — 200 people were trying to get out.”

The fire likely started when “fountain candle” sparklers were held aloft too close to the ceiling at the Constellation bar, the region’s chief prosecutor has said.

The mini-fireworks, stuck in the top of champagne bottles, were being waved near the basement bar’s low ceiling, covered in thin soundproofing foam, according to the images posted to social media.

One video showed the ceiling catching alight and the flames spreading quickly, with revelers initially continuing to dance, seemingly unaware of the death trap they were caught in.

Some 119 people suffered injuries, including severe burns, with many transferred to burn units in hospitals around Europe. Work on identifying the dead and the injured is continuing, the police said.

Two bar managers are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, the Valais region’s chief prosecutor, Beatrice Pilloud, told reporters Saturday. The announcement of the investigation did not name the managers.

Authorities planned to look into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar. Officials said they also would look at other safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes.

Hundreds march in Crans-Montana

Meanwhile, hundreds marched in silence in Crans-Montana on Sunday to honor the victims of the fire.

Somber mourners, many with reddened eyes, filed silently out of the chapel to organ music after the hourlong Mass at the Chapelle Saint-Christophe in Crans-Montana. Some exchanged hugs, others applauded, before joining the silent march up the hill to Le Constellation bar.

Many hundreds of people, some cradling flower bouquets, walked in the dense snaking procession in the bright sunlight past shuttered stores. Up on the mountain overlooking the town, snow machines sent plumes of white flakes into the air.

At the top of the street, in front of Le Constellation that is still largely shielded from view by white screens, the swelling crowd stood in near total silence, some weeping.

Then they broke out into sustained applause — hands in gloves and mittens against the cold — as a stream of mourners and well-wishers deposited flower bouquets at a makeshift memorial piled with flowers, cuddly toys and other tributes.

“We are going through a moment of crushing darkness but we are going through it together,” one speaker said.